The the companies can stay on XP (at their own risk), move to Windows 7 or wait and see what comes out from MS in the future. They can also consider moving to a flavour of linux or one of the other operating systems available.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything.
…I know. That was my point. I was trying to counter the argument that seems to be increasingly put forward in these discussions that is along the lines of "people who can't use Windows 8 are idiots". Because they aren't.